Posts from January 2007

January 31, 2007

Sources inform me that Boston Conservatory senior Chelsea Stock has been cast in the ensemble of the upcoming Disney stage production of The Little Mermaid. She will also understudy the lead role of Ariel.

Of course, everyone at BoCo is thrilled for Chelsea. But I must admit that I get a particular thrill from Chelsea's good fortune: she's the first of my former students to be cast in a Broadway show. I guess that's the opposite of schadenfreude: I'm taking vicarious pleasure in someone else's good fortune.

Congratulations, Chelsea!

In other former-students-of-mine news, Hayley Podschun took my Conservatory course a couple of years back, but then left BoCo to appear in the national tour of Hairspray. Well, according to IMDB, Hayley will make her film debut in the upcoming movie version of Hairspray. She's also rumored to be joining the Broadway version sometime soon.

I couldn't be more thrilled for both Hayley and Chelsea. Of course, on some level, I'm holding on to the faint hope that I, in some infinitesimal way, helped to contribute to their incipient success stories. ("Get over yourself, Chris. You only taught them one friggin' course...") But, in truth, these are two very talented young women benefiting from their own gifts and hard work.

January 30, 2007

The Off Broadway camp-fest/blood-bath Evil Dead: the Musical will play its final performance on February 17th. It will have played 126 performances and 34 previews. Even with the relatively modest production elements and cast that this show employs, I can't imagine that will be enough to pay back its initial investment.

As I said in my review, the show seems to think it's a whole lot funnier than it really is. The songs are terrible, one step above improv. The performers are game, but the show and the director don't give them enough quality comedic material to work with.

So don't be in any big rush to see the show before it closes, unless you're a big fan of the movie, or you're the kind of person who thinks that buckets of blood poring out of peoples' heads is inherently funny. I must admit, sometimes it is. But when it comes to this sort of broad humor, a little goes an awfully long way.

January 25, 2007

Although many people eagerly await the Oscar nominations, I tend to look forward to the Razzies. Call it schadenfreude, but there's something really satisfying in seeing Madonna being told, yet again, that she simply cannot act. At all.

But this year's Razzie nominations were bittersweet for me, for along with skewering the overblown, fatuous likes of Sharon Stone, Nicolas Cage, and M. Night Shyamalan, the Razzies also saw fit to pick on some beloved theater stalwarts.

Our own sweet, talented Kristen Chenoweth received a Razzie nomination for worst supporting actress for her work in three films this year: "Pink Panther," "RV," and "Deck the Halls." Now, I haven't seen these movies -- and I certainly have no intention of doing so -- but I get the feeling that our dear Kristen received this nomination because she had the misfortune of appearing in three dreadful movies in one year, and not because she was especially bad in any or all of said films. But then, even the best performers can issue forth stink bombs when the material and direction are poor.

I'm assuming that also was the case with our next nominee, the redoubtable Martin Short, who was nominated for worst supporting actor for his performance in "The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Claus." Again, this movie is not now, nor is it likely to ever be, in my Netflix queue. But Mr. Short is a consummate performer, although his histrionic antics are certainly not to everyone's taste.

January 24, 2007

The producers of the "Dreamgirls" movie were no doubt hoping for the same spate of Oscar nominations that "Chicago" received a few years back, including best picture and best director. Well, "Dreamgirls" did receive 8 nominations, but all in relatively minor categories. The only two that really matter:

Supporting actor...Eddie MurphySupporting Actress...Jennifer Hudson

The rest are in the relatively easy-to-score categories, including best song, in which the movie received three nominations: "Love You I Do," "Listen," and "Patience." It also received three nominations in the technical categories: art direction, sound mixing, and costumes. Not to demean these achievements, but when even horrible movies like "Poseidon" and "Click" can score technical nominations, these categories don't really say much for the overall quality of the movie.

Why the snub? Well, it's a good movie. A very good movie. But it's not a great movie. Neither was "Chicago," for that matter, but voters were no doubt swayed by the novelty factor: no movie musical had received a best-picture nomination since "Cabaret" in 1972. I don't count "All That Jazz" in 1979 or "Beauty and the Beast" in 1991, since the former isn't really a musical, since no one sings in character, and "Beauty" is an animated film first and a musical second.

In any case, it hadn't happened in a while, so the novelty of a halfway-decent movie musical made "Chicago" stand out. Although "Dreamgirls" is head-and-shoulders above such recent cinematic musicals as "The Producers," "Rent," and "Phantom of the Opera," movie makers haven't yet learned how to recapture the magic of such best-picture winners as "My Fair Lady" and "West Side Story."

January 23, 2007

Regular readers of this blog will no doubt recall my love for The Drowsy Chaperone, which has even stood up to repeated viewings. So, I thought I'd catch you all up on a few pieces of Drowsy news.

Now that DC is an unqualified hit, the producers have seen fit to upgrade the marquee outside the Marquis. Before it was a back-lit Plexiglas sign. Now it's a full-fledged neon version that fits in quite nicely in the Times Square milieu.

Also, as previously announced, the Drowsy Chaperone recording will be coming out on vinyl. This is perfectly fitting, given that the lead character (Man in Chair) goes out of his way to stress his preternatural attachment to his beloved Broadway records ("Yes, records..."). The collector's-item edition will cost $50, so it's certainly not meant for the casual fan. Luckily, I'm not the casual fan.

And, finally, news of the impending London production of DC comes with the announcement that the short-in-stature but long-on-talent Miss Elaine Paige will be starring as the eponymous chaperone. The show is scheduled to begin previews in May for a June opening at the Novello Theater. With all due respect to the talented Miss Paige, I can't imagine anyone taking the place of Tony winner Beth Leavel in my heart. Her performance was one of the highlights of the Broadway production: totally over the top, but for this show, that's a good thing.

January 18, 2007

Disney has announced that its attenuated cash cow Beauty and the Beastwill close in July. Taking its place will be the mighty mouse's next animation-to-stage venture, The Little Mermaid. Beauty has been running for an astonishing 13 years, all the more astonishing in that it only won one Tony Award, for costume design. It lost the Best Musical award to Stephen Sondheim's Passion, which is to date Sondheim's last show to reach Broadway.

It's easy to pooh-pooh Beauty and the Beast. Yeah, the splashy presentation overshadows the content, but the show itself is quite good, particularly the score by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, with supplemental lyrics by Tim Rice after Ashman's unfortunate death.

Disney has had a spotty record on Broadway. Beauty was overproduced. The Lion King is the ultimate triumph of style over substance. Aida had much to recommend it, especially its effectively spare but impressionistic design. And the score had a couple of really great standout numbers: "Elaborate Lives" and "Easy as Life." Tarzan is, by all accounts, an artistic disaster. And although Mary Poppinsis looking like a gargantuan hit, I absolutely detested it when I saw it in London.

So Disney has much to prove with its forthcoming production of The Little Mermaid. First, there's the challenge of convincingly representing the underwater world on stage. Also, they'll need to bring in someone to supplement the late Howard Ashman's brilliant lyrics. As previously announced, Glenn Slater (who wrote lyrics for Disney's "Home on the Range") will be taking on this daunting task. On the plus side, there's Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife, Grey Gardens) working on the book.

Hey, I'm all for a hit musical, pretty much regardless of whom is producing. So I wish Disney well. I just hope that their legendarily corporate approach to producing shows doesn't mar yet another promising property.

January 17, 2007

It's beginning to look like losing on "American Idol" is better than winning, at least from a musical-theater perspective. Jennifer Hudson won the Golden Globe for best supporting actress for her film debut in Dreamgirls. And Broadway has proved to be more than willing to snap up "American Idol " runners-up:

Josh Strickland...TarzanConstantine Maroulis...The Wedding Singer, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well And Living in ParisDiana Degarmo...HairsprayAmy Adams...Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (tour)Frenchie Davis...Rent

It's arguable that "American Idol" has also influenced singing styles on Broadway, although it also may be true that the two developments are simply parallel rather than causal. Recent shows that require, or have required, more of a pop sound include Wicked, Brooklyn, Spring Awakening, Rent, The Wedding Singer, All Shook Up, Jersey Boys, Good Vibrations, The Times They Are a Changin', Ring of Fire, Lennon, High Fidelity, and Mamma Mia.

Students at the Boston Conservatory have been requesting that instructors reshape their curricula to reflect that pop influence on Broadway. But this also could be because BoCo has had two former students go on to become "American Idol" finalists (Katherine McPhee and Constantine Maroulis), and students are hoping that they too might tread that potentially lucrative path.

Either way, it bodes well for Broadway. As musical theater infuses more of a popular sound, it becomes more relevant to a younger demographic, and that's the key to the long-term viability of the form. When Hair came to Broadway in the sixties, many predicted that pop music was the sound of the theater's future. Little did they know it would take some forty years for that prediction to come true.

January 16, 2007

"Oh my God! I can't believe that you...you, of all people...you haven't seen Dreamgirls yet."

I got sick of hearing it. So, when my second ski weekend in a row got washed out, I decided to go to the movies instead. And I saw Dreamgirls.

Overall, I had a great time. Solid film-making and storytelling. The performances were nothing spectacular or, in my opinion, Oscar-worthy, but all-around they were more than serviceable. This is certainly the first Eddie Murphy movie I've enjoyed since...well, since ever. Unless you count Shrek. The much ballyhooed Jennifer Hudson is very good, but not amazing. If there was one stand-out performance for me, it was that of Tony winner Anika Noni Rose, who is just terrific as Lorelle.

The movie exhibits what I call the Cabaret effect: it gets rid of most of the sequences in which the performers sing in character, which makes the few times that they do sing in character seem strange. But the songs that have been added, all of which the characters sing in performance, and not in character, are quite effective, especially "Listen" and "I Love You, I Do." Each of the new numbers is added for a particular dramatic purpose, not just to score a best-song Oscar.

The choreography is terrible. It's not as laughably bad as the misguided vogue-ing in the film of The Phantom of the Opera, but it's awkward and distracting. The movie goes out of its way to credit Michael Bennett, but the lame choreography does him a disservice.

The movie reminded me that we don't really have anyone who knows how to make a movie musical. Certainly not Rob Marshall: he did a presentable job with Chicago, but he's no Bob Fosse. And Bill Condon is certainly no Michael Bennett. Yeah, the movie won the Golden Globe for "Best Musical or Comedy." But so did Evita.

But on the whole, the movie works. And since it's making money, that presages well for more movie musicals in the future.

January 11, 2007

The finest actress of our time has reportedly signed on the do the movie version of the international smash-hit ABBA musical Mamma Mia. The amazing Meryl Streep is slated to play the female lead, Donna Sheridan. As anyone who's seen "Postcards from the Edge" or "A Prairie Home Companion" can attest, Streep's certainly got the pipes.

No word yet on the rest of the cast, but Phyllida Lloyd, the director for the stage show, will reportedly make her film-directing debut with this production. That's quite a leap of faith for our dear Meryl. And Catherine Johnson, who wrote the creaky, jokey book for the show, will be writing the screenplay. With able assistance from the inevitable Hollywood co-writers, one presumes. As previously reported, Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson are the executive producers.

Yeah, Mamma Mia is a trifle. But it's a fun trifle. I certainly had a ball when I saw it on tour in Boston. And with Meryl making the movie, well, for me that makes it a must-see.

January 09, 2007

Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick had one of the toughest acts to follow in musical-theater history when deciding what show to create after their phenomenally successful Fiddler on the Roof. It was really a no-win proposition. They certainly couldn't have chosen a show more different from Fiddler than The Apple Tree. And, of course, for their next -- and, to date, last -- show they created The Rothschilds, a show that went too far back in the other direction: people thought it was Fiddler with sons.

The Apple Tree comprises three distinct musicals, albeit with thematic connections, mostly around the subject of forbidden knowledge. The first act tells the story of Adam and Eve, as filtered through the sensibility of Mark Twain. The second act poses the age-old question, "The Lady or the Tiger?" And the third relates the travails of Ella the chimney sweep in her goal to become a "beautiful, glamorous, radiant, ravishing movie star."

Musicals that attempt to tell more than one separate story rarely work, at least not commercially. Notable attempts include Weird Romance, 3hree, and Romance Romance. The Apple Tree doesn't really work either. The problem seems to be the difficulty of creating believable and sympathetic characters in a relatively brief span of time. In The Apple Tree, only the first act does this successfully.

Act 1 is slight, mildly amusing, and ultimately somewhat touching. And it's the only real humanity in evidence during the entire show. The production concept for the first act is spare with occasional flashes of color, relying mostly on found objects that turn into set pieces. (As Christine Ebersole sings in Grey Gardens, "We invent the objet trouve, make a poncho from a duvet...") It winds up feeling more like something suited to off-Broadway, or at least a significantly smaller house. Adam and Eve get lost in the cavernous brown expanse of the undressed stage.

Although the show itself is sketchy, the performers are marvelous. Kristen Chenoweth is a star for a reason. She can hold the stage all by her own, even with very little in the way of scenery or costumes. And she has an extremely engaging way of delivering a song. Brian D'arcy James took a while to warm up, but he ultimately acquits himself nicely in the number "It's a Fish." Marc Kudish only needed one number in act 1 to prove his undeniable star quality. His stocky frame would seem to belie his fluid physical expression, but he exhibits terrific movement and mannerisms, particularly as the Snake in Act 1.

In acts 2 and 3, the chorus comes on to sell sell sell. It's as though they realize this is a limited run and are auditioning for their next gig. The second act ends on a cliff hanger, presumably to let the audience make up its own mind. During the brief pause between acts two and three (there's only one intermission) the woman sitting next to me said, "That's it?" My feelings exactly.

Act 3 is all about big hair and big boobs. The characters are cartoonish, but that doesn't automatically make them funny. Without sufficient time to develop fully fleshed characters, the comedy comes from broad performances and shtick, and often falls flat.

So, overall a reasonably engaging production, but certainly not worth a special trip. Through my Roundabout subscription, I wound up paying about $50 for my ticket. I'm not sure if I had paid the full $111 if I would have felt that I got my money's worth.

As for the venue itself, this was my first time in the recently re-legitimized Studio 54. What an interesting space. It's hard to picture it as a nightclub, although the house is large, dark, and rather forbidding. The venue would seem very appropriate for Cabaret or Assassins, but a bit of a stretch for The Apple Tree. Even so, it's a useful and seemingly versatile house. Just a bit big for something like The Apple Tree.

January 08, 2007

Over the weekend, I took a trip to NYC to see a couple shows. One of them was the first show of my Roundabout subscription that I actually got to see: The Apple Tree. Look for my review here tomorrow.

I also caught Evil Dead: The Musical. Now, I'm a big fan of shows like Bat Boy, Reefer Madness, and Little Shop of Horrors, which I refer to in my Boston Conservatory course as "campy, Off-Broadway bloodbaths." Evil Dead takes the notion of a bloodbath quite literally: people in the first three rows of the orchestra receive ponchos to protect their clothing from the profuse amounts of stage blood. In fact, the most enjoyable part of the show was the penultimate number in Act 2, which I can only describe as a ballet of blood. It was a real hoot.

Unfortunately, that's just about the only time that the show was a genuine pleasure. The rest of the time, the humor was rather forced. The show and the cast seem to think they're a whole lot funnier than they actually are. Deliberate camp is extremely tough to pull off, and co-directors Christopher Bond and Hinton Battle (yes, that Hinton Battle, he of the three Tony awards), don't seem to have the requisite touch. Lots of mugging and scenery chewing, but only to moderate comic effect. There were, however, some genuinely funny moments scattered throughout the two acts, and I must concede that the fans of the movie who were present seemed to be
having a better time than I was.

The score is atrocious. It reminded me of a bad musical episode of South Park: bad prosody (in other words, the lyrics don't always scan with the music), an over-reliance on assonance (in other words, the lyrics don't always rhyme), and puerile melodies (in other words...well...you get the idea). You might say, well, it's supposed to be bad. Sorry, I don't buy that. The great thing about Bat Boy, Reefer Madness, and Little Shop of Horrors is that they have quality scores, although Reefer isn't quite in the same class as the other two. You can tell that there's genuine theatrical knowhow behind the scenes. Of course I'll get the Evil Dead CD: I have a disease. But I can't imagine listening to it very often.

So, a moderately amusing show, but certainly not high quality musical theater. The audience comprised mostly young straight men and their biker chicks. It's nice to see that there's another show in New York besides Spamalot that can attract that demographic. I just can't see it crossing over and bringing in the hardcore theater queens. Besides me, that is.

January 04, 2007

OK, I probably should have made these three YouTube posts all one post. But I kept discovering different clips throughout the day. Plus, it's easier for search engines to find my site if I include certain keywords in the headlines and in the links. So more headlines means more hits. Incidentally, that's why the titles of my posts tend to be more descriptive than clever. It's all in the name of "search-engine optimization."

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I'm new to YouTube. If you are, too, it's just a place where people upload video clips. They're all in the same format, so you don't have to worry about having the right player.

In addition to the Spring Awakening and "Scrubs" videos listed below, there are also two really cool Grey Gardens clips. One is of the luminous Christine Ebersole performing the alternately frenzied and moving "Around the World" in a concert setting. The second is Ebersole at the Drama Desk Awards doing the Act opener "The Revolutionary Costume for Today."

Also on YouTube, a music video of the Spring Awakeningshow stopper "The Bitch of Living." Check it out. It gives you a good sense of the style of the show. Although the story is set in the 1800s, the staging, attitude, and sound are all decidedly 21st century.

January 01, 2007

I love lists. They're fun to compile and they're fun to read through. I especially love end-of-the-year lists: they remind me of all the quality productions I've seen throughout the year, as well as the gawdawful dreck I've had to sit through.

The good folks at Playbill.com have been kind enough to compile all the top-ten Broadway/Theater lists they could find into one article. I've sifted through looking for mentions of musicals and put together a little list digest of my own. Here are the various shows that made the critics' top ten, followed by the number of lists that show appeared on:

The Best RevivalsCompany 4A Chorus Line 4Sweeney Todd 2The Pajama Game 3

Attentive readers will note that the shows above come from both last season and this season. I'm willing to attribute the fact that certain terrific shows fell somewhat short in the tally (Sweeney Todd, The Drowsy Chaperone) because a number of critics considered them to be "last year." Two shows notably absent are Jersey Boys and Les Miserables. Well, Jersey Boys opened in November of 2005, and likely showed up on last year's lists. But Les Miz opened in October 2006, yet failed to make a single list. Hmm...

Almost as enjoyable as recollecting the best shows is taking stock of the crap. Here are the shows that critics chose as the worst of the year, along with the number of lists they appeared on:

The Worst The Times They Are A Changin' 2Lestat 2The Threepenny Opera 2Ring of Fire 1Hot Feet 1High Fidelity 1

I have very little sympathy for any of these shows, especially Lestat which I had the extreme displeasure of sitting through. But I do feel kinda bad for High Fidelity. In the right hands, it could have been a really good show. Theater wonks have opined that the problem with the show was that it was aiming for a demographic that doesn't really do musicals: straight young men. Not sure I agree. If the show had been good, it could have transcended demographics. The real problems with High Fidelity were an anemic book, lackluster staging, and non-existent direction.

Of course, the most important accolade for a Broadway musical is the Tony. Let's hope that Grey Gardens and Spring Awakening, last year's shows with the greatest critical acclaim, are able to survive the January and February doldrums, and can hang on long enough to benefit from any prospective Tony nominations.